


My Mind Holds the Key

by mikripetra



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Bastard!Aziraphale, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Quote: You go too fast for me Crowley (Good Omens), soft!Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24005929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikripetra/pseuds/mikripetra
Summary: “Was your-” Aziraphale choked around the phrase, but forced it out anyway. “Your best friend. The one you lost. Were they returned to normal? Are they alright now?”“Angel,” Crowley drawled, blinking up at Aziraphale like he was staring into a particularly bright spotlight. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 305
Collections: The Good Omens Collection, The Good Omens Library





	My Mind Holds the Key

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, I've read pages upon pages of discourse about the infamous "you go too fast for me" line. But I feel like we've been getting it all wrong. Aziraphale isn't scared of commitment; he's scared of being left behind.

_my body is a cage that keeps me_

_from dancing with the one I love_

_but my mind holds the key_

Things were completely different. Things hadn’t changed at all.

After they left the Ritz, Crowley and Aziraphale wandered back to the same place they’d been lounging inside for the past two hundred-odd years.

They didn’t look different, in any way that mattered, and the bookshop was identical to how it had been when it first opened. The few books that Aziraphale _had_ sold had been quickly replaced, of course. 

The world had been pulled from the brink of destruction and back again. Crowley, a long time purveyor of mindless internet videos, was reminded of a recording of an exploding vase: the vase expanded in slow motion, shards pointing artfully outwards, before the video reversed and the vase reformed without so much as a crack.

Real life was never so simple. People, even people-shaped beings like the two of them, tended to be...messy. No one could come out of an experience like the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t without some stretch marks. Some signs of damage.

Here they were, sitting in exactly the same places they had been for decades. Crowley, lounging on the couch. Aziraphale in his desk chair. Half-forgotten wine glasses and bottles of old wine lay scattered around them. 

Crowley still sat loose-limbed. Aziraphale still sat with his back straight as a board. But something was different, nonetheless.

The air was thick and soupy with unsaid words. Any time one of them would open their mouths, nothing would come out. They’d drink, instead.

They’d been doing that for almost half a day, at this point.

Even Crowley, who could be counted on to rattle off words no matter how lacking in meaning they happened to be, was uncharacteristically silent.

Aziraphale’s ordinarily dim bookshop was lit as brightly as it could be in the middle of the night. His affinity for warm yellows and well-loved woods only went so far- tonight, the shadows in the corners of the room unnerved him. It was a hard thing, making the place bright enough to drive away the after-effects of his journey into Hell, but dull enough to drive away any reminiscence of Heaven. 

Aziraphale never thought he’d feel almost equally uncomfortable about both places. 

A thought occurred to him through the deep haze of alcohol. He straightened, disinebriating himself enough to speak without making a fool of himself.

The guilt hit him much worse without the wine to take the edge off.

“Oh, my dear boy,” Aziraphale hit himself none too lightly on the forehead. “I could kick myself. I’d completely forgotten.”

Crowley jolted at the sudden noise. His glasses hung askew, dangling dangerously on the bridge of his nose. One eye was completely exposed, blinking up at Aziraphale in bewilderment.

“Wazzat?”

“Was your-“ Aziraphale choked around the phrase, but forced it out anyway. “Your best friend. The one you lost. Were they returned to normal? Are they alright now?”

Crowley’s head rose slowly from the tangled puddle of limbs currently lounging on the couch. He opened his mouth, and instead of speaking in any known language, made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a squeal. Aziraphale, who had spent thousands of years trying to interpret Crowley’s noises, automatically filed this one under “stunned incredulity.”

Aziraphale looked away, cursing himself. “Quite right. None of my business, I suppose.”

Aziraphale heard a faint clatter- Crowley had thrown his glasses onto the coffee table, where they hastily skittered to the floor. Smart devils, to get away from him as soon as they could.

“Angel,” Crowley drawled, blinking up at Aziraphale like he was staring into a particularly bright spotlight. “What the _fuck_ are you talking about?”

Aziraphale stiffened. “Oh, come now. Your best friend. The one you lost, yesterday. They were returned to normal along with everything else, I presume?”

The silence stretched on. Crowley kept blinking at him. His mouth hung ajar, lips twitching like he was trying to form words but couldn’t summon the will.

Aziraphale chuckled nervously. “You’ll catch flies, you know.”

Crowley’s mouth shut with a click.

There was a reason everyone, ethereal or occult or human or none of the above, thought Aziraphale was exceedingly English. He was English before England was invented. And if there was one thing the English had, it was tact.

Crowley obviously didn’t want to talk about this friend of his. And who was Aziraphale to argue? He himself had said that they weren’t friends. No matter what had happened during or after the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t, no matter what they did or where they dined, Aziraphale had no right to know the details of Crowley’s private life.

It didn’t matter how much Aziraphale loved Crowley. Crowley didn’t love him, and never would, in any way that mattered. Aziraphale had made his peace with that long ago. 

“Right, then,” Aziraphale said, with a very English touch to his knees, before heading into the kitchen. “Shall I fetch the snifters? Adam isn’t much for discerning bourbon, but I’m sure that watered-down vinegar he left me in the back could be encouraged to take on a more pleasing shape-”

A hand was at his shoulder. A featherlight touch, gone as soon as it came. Aziraphale turned, bemused. “Yes?”

“Angel, you know.”

Aziraphale quirked an eyebrow at him. “Know what, dear boy?”

Crowley swallowed, slowly and deliberately.

“You have to know,” he repeated, more than a hint of desperation coloring his voice. 

Aziraphale leaned in conspiratorially, placing a hand firmly on Crowley’s upper arm. “I do know something.”

Crowley’s face smoothed into a blank, slack expression, even as his eyes continued to dance with energy. He stopped moving, for a second- only out of surprise, Aziraphale was sure. 

“And- well, er- that is-” Crowley cleared his throat. “What’s that?”

Aziraphale smiled broadly. “I know that you need a nice, calming cup of hot tea. Chamomile?”

Crowley‘s lips pulled back to show his teeth, but his eyebrows furrowed, and his face shifted and changed like he was stuck between a grimace and a smile.

“You know chamomile tastes like rich people’s lawn cuttings.”

Aziraphale laughed. It was an age-old argument between them, but Crowley always ended up drinking the chamomile tea, lawn cuttings and all.

Aziraphale patted him amicably on the shoulder before turning away toward the kitchen. 

Aziraphale puttered about the kitchen, filling the kettle with water- a kettle he’d had since 1893, mind you- and setting it on the stove. All the while, Crowley followed him, like a puppy trying to find its way home.

“Have you got something to say, dear?” Aziraphale asked with a smile, opening the cabinet where he kept the tea leaves.

“You’re my best friend,” Crowley grumbled. The words sounded painful, like they were being torn from his throat by a pair of raggedly sharp tweezers. 

Aziraphale paused, hand outstretched toward the tea. 

His first instinct, of course, was to be overjoyed. 

Even after everything Aziraphale had said, all the terrible ways he’d treated Crowley, Crowley still thought of him as his best friend?

But again, it was very important to remember, Aziraphale was English. He knew how to keep a stiff upper lip.

Or, in this case, enough control over one’s mental faculties not to immediately jump for joy and cheer in the middle of the kitchen. 

Aziraphale deftly selected the tea, placed it on the counter, and took a long, deep breath before answering. 

“Well, I suppose you’re mine as well,” Aziraphale dared to say, his body thrumming with nerves. “I know you’re one for cavorting about with humans, but I haven’t formed many meaningful relationships outside of...well, ours, I suppose. Haven’t had the time or the will.”

Crowley sneered on instinct. “I don’t _cavort.”_

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. _Here we go again._ “Whatever you wish to call it.”

Crowley blinked like Aziraphale had slapped him in the face. Aziraphale winced inwardly. Perhaps not the best choice of words. Neither of them had any desire to remember their last real argument before the Apocalypse had started.

Crowley cleared his throat. “Anyway-”

A thought occurred to Aziraphale. “Hold on a minute- you said _lost._ I wasn’t _lost_. I was discorporated. You seemed terribly morose over a simple discorporation. Surely, you must’ve lost someone else to make you that upset. There’s no need to lie to make me feel better, Crowley. Honestly.”

Crowley stared. Without the blinking, without the fidgeting, the sight was quite unnerving. Not because of Crowley’s peculiar eyes- Aziraphale had grown fond of those centuries ago- but because of the sheer intensity in his gaze. The vulnerability, and the strength.

“I thought you were dead,” Crowley choked out.

“You-”

Aziraphale giggled. Quite uncontrollably, and loudly. Crowley just kept staring at him.

And all of a sudden, Aziraphale was hit with a violent wave of horror. Disbelief, nausea, and terrifyingly powerful loneliness.

If their situations were reversed, and Aziraphale had believed Crowley to be gone forever...

But Aziraphale loved Crowley. He Loved him, of course, as he Loved all things. But he _loved_ Crowley, too.

Aziraphale had come to terms with this a very long time ago. He had also come to terms with the fact that the demon would never, _could_ never love him back.

It was a fact that Aziraphale repeated to himself quite often. Crowley made it increasingly hard to remember. 

Aziraphale’s entire world would have come crashing down around his ears if he thought Crowley were gone forever. But surely, Crowley didn’t feel the same way. It wasn’t possible.

“But- my dear boy-” There it was again, that deliberate, slow swallow, that slow blink that came whenever Aziraphale called Crowley by anything other than his name. 

“Why were you _so_ upset?” Aziraphale blurted out.

Crowley’s mask of a face quickly disfigured into a caricature of disbelief. Aziraphale hadn’t known that one eyebrow could rise so very high without the other one following closely behind.

“Angel,” Crowley began, slowly.

Everything Crowley had done tonight was so _slow,_ so _deliberate._ Aziraphale was used to _fast_ Crowley, 150-miles-in-a-school-zone Crowley, the Crowley that changed his entire wardrobe every five years and would disappear for months at a time without so much as a note. Why was Crowley being so _strange-_

Crowley cut himself off, gaze lowering to the floor. Aziraphale felt vindicated, but it was tainted with bitter disappointment. Aziraphale had been right. Crowley _hadn’t_ been that upset over his discorporation. Why would he be? It wasn’t like he actually _cared_ about Aziraphale, grand gestures and pleas to run away aside. Aziraphale was just convenient. Someone to talk to in a world where every other sentient being died almost as soon as they were born. 

All of those little moments throughout their shared history that appeared to be born out of love could be chalked up to something else. Something selfish, or something meant to tempt. It didn’t take very many mental acrobatics to see that. 

Did it?

After a long, tense moment, Crowley spoke.

“Doubt thou the stars are fire,” he began, letting each word roll slowly and carefully off his tongue.

Hamlet.

That wily old serpent.

He swore up and down that he detested that play. And yet here he was, reciting its lines.

“Doubt the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar…”

Was that really all that surprising, Aziraphale wondered? Crowley was a known liar, a known hypocrite. It was in his nature- snakes were always going from one place to the next, shedding their skins, always changing their shape to better suit their needs and to keep moving forward. 

Aziraphale had always believed that Crowley had sent people in droves to see Hamlet simply because…oh, he didn’t know. He’d never given it too much thought, really. He’d just chalked it up to Crowley changing his mind about the play, like he was always wont to do. 

“But never doubt I…”

He couldn’t have done it out of affection for Aziraphale. Surely not.

“I…”

Crowley was many things, but genuine? Loving? Those weren’t words Aziraphale could ever use to describe him, not in any world holding on to a shred of sanity.

Crowley dragged a hand over his face. “Angel, don’t make me say it.”

_Never doubt I love._

How the hell was that supposed to work?

Aziraphale was supposed to accept that Crowley- what, _loved_ him? Of course he doubted it.

“Well, I must do,” Aziraphale snapped, feeling very out of place. “How could I not doubt that, Crowley?”

Crowley sighed. It wasn’t an exasperated sigh, or a frustrated one, or even an angry one. It was resigned. Like he had been expecting Aziraphale to say that. “Because I’m a demon.”

“Because I _know_ you.”

“Obviously-” and here Crowley paused for a snorting laugh that somehow managed not to sound funny at all “-you don’t _,_ angel.”

“You saved the children who would’ve drowned in the Great Flood,” Aziraphale responded softly. “You came to fetch me from the Bastille. You saved me, and my books, when you could’ve let me get shot at by double-crossing Nazi lowlifes. You tried to get me to run away with you because you knew they would come for us, even then.” 

Crowley looked surprised. “I- yes.”

Aziraphale’s hands curled into fists at his sides. His eyes bored twin holes in the antique tin of chamomile, carefully labeled with his own faded script.

“You like to go _fast_.” And once Aziraphale started, he couldn’t stop. “You’re constantly changing and shifting. You’re always adapting to the latest human gadget or trend. You’re selfless one day, then bringing about the ruin of thousands the next. You give people guns to kill each other with, and then suddenly make it so they can’t really hurt each other. And two seconds after that, you’re throwing me against the wall for paying you a compliment! You tell me you’re going to- to run away to Alpha Centauri alone and never think of me again, and then you risk death by wearing my face and fighting my battle.”

And here Aziraphale stopped, breathing heavily. He rarely got angry. He was much more in favor of what some would call the route of the coward: aversion, distraction, bringing humor. But this speech had been bubbling and festering under his skin since the Beginning. 

“You never know what you _want_ , Crowley. And I can’t be part of that. It will never work. Can’t you see that?”

And here was that stillness, yet again. That un-Crowley-like stillness, soaking in Aziraphale’s words without so much as a rude gesture. 

“You know, you’ve missed a few things,” Crowley said, his voice deathly calm.

And finally, here Crowley was. The Crowley Aziraphale had become inoculated against after centuries of exposure. He shoved his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and began to pace wildly and without direction.

“Throughout all of it, throughout the whole- the whole-” And here Crowley spread his arms wide, the tips of his fingers hitting the ends of Aziraphale’s tasteful chandelier. “The whole _blasted_ time, the whole six- six thousand years in this _blasted_ place, you’ve forgotten one thing, angel. Something I chose from the start, and kept on choosing.”

Aziraphale scoffed. “And what is that? Your choice to Fall?”

Crowley flinched. Actually, visibly flinched.

“No,” Crowley snarled, his lips curving in a cruel smirk without any joy behind it. “I bloody chose _you_. Every time. And you didn’t choose me.”

Of course, at that moment, the kettle let loose an inhuman shriek. Aziraphale’s gaze snapped to it, turning off the flame with barely a thought. And when he looked up, Crowley was gone.

Aziraphale wasn’t surprised. 

He bowed his head. He had known this was coming. No matter what Crowley said about the two of them being on _their side,_ no matter what he did or how much time Crowley spent with him, Aziraphale knew he would always leave. Crowley had invented the term _wanderlust,_ after all.

With shaking hands, he opened the tin of chamomile. 

To say he jumped out of his skin when Crowley returned a second later would be the understatement of the millennium.

“Oh, _bollocks!_ ” he cried, startling so badly that the chamomile ended up all over the floor.

Before Aziraphale could even reach for the broom, Crowley glared at the leaves scattered at their feet. They jumped back into the tin immediately, quivering in fear. 

Crowley laughed softly. “What do you know? Works on dead plants, too.”

Despite himself, despite everything, Aziraphale smiled back. 

  
  


* * *

“I thought you’d gone,” Aziraphale said, long after their tea had been drained away and the teacups forgotten in the sink.

Crowley made a strangled noise, halfway between a sob and a scream.

“I thought _you’d_ gone, angel,” he said, voice thick. “Stupid of me, I know. But I did.”

Aziraphale placed a hand over Crowley’s palm. His fingers twitched, and slowly, deliberately, like he was afraid Aziraphale would change his mind, he entwined their fingers.

Crowley had always been a few degrees colder than humans. But sitting on Aziraphale’s battered couch, sleep-drunk and full of tea, he just felt alive. 

“I was going to leave,” Crowley whispered. “But you really think that, don’t you? That I’ll get tired of you. That I’ll get _bored,_ and just- just up and leave.”

“Won’t you?” Aziraphale asked, voice small and quavering to an embarrassing degree.

Crowley pursed his lips. Slowly, his thumb began to stroke Aziraphale’s own.

“It’s easier for you,” Crowley began, even-tempered and slow. “You’ve never had to...reinvent yourself. Since before the Beginning, you’ve just existed. You knew who you were, and that was the end of it. I had to _create_ who I am.”

Crowley laughed sadly. “Do you know how hard it is to do that? I was a creator. I’ve always been that. That sort of thing doesn’t just leave you. I made the stars, and I made myself. I wouldn’t let anyone take that privilege, that _right_ away from me. They told me to be cruel, they named me Crawly, and I flipped them off and never looked back. You’re mistaking creation with indifference. I...I care.”

He looked Aziraphale dead in the eyes. “I would never leave you. Not really. Not for good. I’d always come back to you, angel.”

Aziraphale stared. What could he possibly say in response?

 _Thank you for telling me._ Crowley would scoff, take his hand back, start a rant about _blasted Carl Rogers and that bloody unconditional positive regard,_ and the moment would be broken.

Aziraphale could only do what the two of them had been doing for millenia: meeting in the middle.

“You know, whenever someone makes off with one of my books, I nearly always steal it back.”

Crowley cackled, and Aziraphale knew he’d said the right thing.

“You do not.”

“I do,” Aziraphale grinned. “It’s quite wicked of me. I wait until they’ve gone home, and then they find themselves with an empty bag and a disturbingly fuzzy memory of the past few hours.”

“I _knew_ it,” he crowed. “I was sure I’d seen you sell that first edition _Dorian Gray_ twenty-odd times. I could just never prove it.”

Their laughter started up again, before coming to a natural and comfortable finish. They were still holding hands.

“Could we-” Aziraphale’s voice was weak, threaded with tentative hope and transparent doubt. “Could we make it different, this time?”

“How d’you mean?”

Aziraphale swallowed nervously. “I...I don’t want to go back to only seeing each other once or twice a century. I want it to stay like this.”

And at this, Crowley smiled. A cheshire cat smile, much wider than his face was made to allow. “For as long as you want, angel. I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

For the first time in his long, long life, Aziraphale allowed himself to truly feel hopeful. 

Things were completely different, now. But some things hadn’t changed at all. Crowley and Aziraphale, Aziraphale and Crowley, together. That was the same, and different. But they would remain that way: shifting, yes, but constant. Cheerful and serious. Comforting and stern. Selfish and selfless, humble and proud. Good and evil, all wrapped up into something that was neither and both at the same time.

They’d figure it out. They had all the time in the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> pls comment to talk about these idiots they're so wonderful and so, so thickheaded.


End file.
